Archive for Appearances

Congratulations to Alyn Day and Jack Finley on winning autographed copies of Lie with the Dead as part of my St Jude Warrior promotion! Thanks, Alyn and Jack, for supporting my run and the children of St Jude.

Lie with the Dead

While the drawing is over, I’m still taking donations until the day of the race and would greatly appreciate the extra support. Simply visit my St Jude Warrior page for more information.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

Any Warrior Dash participant who raises $300 for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital is eligible for extra privileges including gear check, lunch, and showers. With your help, I was able to take advantage of those privileges in 2012, and I’m hoping to do so again this year.

As an incentive, I’ll be giving away an autographed trade paperback copy of Lie with the Dead. Anyone who donates $5 or more through my St Jude Warrior page will be eligible for the drawing. If we beat the $300 goal by April 15th, I will give away two copies.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

A Dark and Stormy Night, the debut anthology from Kaleidoscope Entertainment, launches next weekend at Wizard’s Chicago Comic Con!

Featuring my short story “Pig Money” with art by Jorge Fornés

This will actually be a flipbook, with A Dark and Story Night showcasing crime and thriller stories and then the flip side, Pandemonium, including horror and supernatural tales.

The guys from Kaleidoscope Entertainment will be located at booths 4051 & 4053 for the convention. Stop by and pick up a copy! If I can make it, I’ll be there Saturday and will spend some time at the booth. At the very least, though, I hope you’ll drop by and talk to Greg Kishbaugh and Rafael Nieves, the two main talents behind Kaleidoscope.

Won’t be at Chicago Comic Con? No problem! As soon as the completed book is available, I’ll have links and purchasing information. I’m looking forward to the final product myself!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

I should mention the conversation is not work-safe. We had a lot of fun with this one.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

I imagine a few of you are clicking on in after listening to my conversation with the guys at The Parafactor this evening. Welcome aboard! I had a great time, and I hope I didn’t sound like too much of a tool.

Thanks again to those of you hanging out in the chat room. I thought about trying to keep up with both the chat and the interview, but in the end I know I’m horrible at multitasking and would have ended up punching keys instead of talking horror flicks and Lovecraft. It was a fun time, and I’ll definitely have to link the show when they post it to their website.

I fully expected to be talking about the paranormal, but it was just a great conversation we could easily have had at bar instead of on the air. That’s what makes a great show as far as I’m concerned, and I recommend folks check them out. (And though I fall more into the skeptic category regarding the paranormal, I do enjoy that sort of thing. The geek in me never left, I just give him a swirley from time to time to keep him in line.)

So browse around, kick the tires, and maybe next time I’m on the show I’ll remember to mention there’s a small reference to Bigfoot in The Pack: Winter Kill.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

Tune in, jump in their live chat, or better yet, call in to the show and ask a question! I’m sure it will be a good time.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

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Due to some home events I’m only going to make it to the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo on Saturday the 17th this year, but that should be enough time to get a feel for this renewed Chicago comic convention and to meet up with a few people.

Though it’s only one day, I’m excited to see how the convention plays out. This one’s in Chicago proper, it’s at a larger venue (McCormick Place), and the reports from the other Reed-run shows like the New York Comic Con are always very good, so I imagine it will be a fun con.

I was hoping to bring my son to his first show at this one, but with only one day there it’s going to be all business. Evileye Books and I still need to recruit some artists, and I’ll also be speaking to my editor about future plans for The Pack, so chances are once we do that and meet up with a few other folks, it will be a packed day.

I’ve updated the Appearances page accordingly. It’s looking sparse right now, but I’ve got some things in the works for late summer or early fall out East. And yes, we still need to nail down something for Chicago, we just haven’t been getting much love from Chicago retailers yet. Hope to have news there soon.

Meanwhile, I need to keep plugging away at Book 2. Hope to run into some of you at C2E2!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

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Things have been going well for The Pack: Winter Kill so far. Things have been quiet on the review front in the last few weeks after a strong start, but we’re still waiting to hear from a few publications we sent copies to. Judging by the almost daily fluctuations in our Amazon sales rank, sales have been at least steady if not building momentum. I’d like to thank those of you who have been spreading the word, too; please keep it up!

Meanwhile, I recently did an interview with Comics Bulletin, which you can read right here. The interview includes a few pages from Big Bad Wolves, the short comic that will be appearing at Evileye Books soon. It was a fun interview to do, and I think you’ll enjoy it. The BBW art is by Mike Henderson, by the way. Browse his blog, he’s got some good eye candy over there.

My next scheduled interview is an Internet radio interview with The Parafactor on May 20th. They’re a live, paranormal call-in show, and lately they’ve been interviewing horror writers like Brian Keene. I’m looking forward to this one, and keep an eye here for more details because you should be able to call in and ask questions.

We’re still looking for an artist for the first The Pack OGN, Chimaera, so I encourage artists to send portfolios or samples to Evileye Books. Yes, they pay. Promptly.

Prelim work on the follow-up to The Pack: Winter Kill is still moving along. I’m moving into Spring Break this week and I hope to have everything finalized by then and to complete the actual writing soon. We’re aiming for fall for this one, but that’s going to depend upon me turning in the manuscript in a timely manner.

Right now I’m punching in the edits for a short story called “The Malice Engine”. Wish me luck, as I will be submitting it to an anthology before I crash out tonight. This story has sold once and I’ve been paid for it, and though the book it was to appear in never saw print, maybe the story still has some magic left in it.

Busy busy busy. As always, I’m looking to up my game and I’m getting a few things lined up. More news soon.

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

This year’s con was a bit bigger than last year’s, and as always the con staff and crowd was great to work with. I set up shop between Cullen Bunn and Russ Dickerson, and while we didn’t have a ton of shopping traffic, we moved some product and met a lot of people, and we generally had a blast.

Saturday morning I volunteered to be a kicking dummy for Wrath’s Muay Thai demonstration. We’ve got a few pictures of that, which I’ll share separately.

The other big event on Saturday was the return of the infamous Gross-out Contest. Formerly a fixture of the World Horror Convention until it was killed a few years ago, the con staff graciously allowed to resurrect it given the attendance of former champions Cullen, Wrath, and Mark McLaughlin. Brian served as emcee and I sat in on the judges’ panel, and we had over 50 people sit in on the readings. More than a few of them almost lost their dinner as the champions and several first-time readers brought their worst to the mic, and in the end Cullen won his 5th title, Wrath came in 2nd, and S.D. Hintz took 3rd.

Unfortunately the bar couldn’t put together a decent boilermaker, but the beauty of a con like VisionCon is the people know how to put together a good room party. In addition to Cullen’s patented diet margaritas, we grabbed drinks with names like Mojo, Green Slime, Deception, and Rusty Bucket. They all go down easy, and if you’re not having fun at a con like this, you’re just not trying.

After two weekends in a row on the road, it’s good to be home. I’m still catching up on email and other writing business, but I’m feeling energized and eager to get some more writing done. Finding a new good review didn’t hurt, either. Thanks again to Dave and his staff for bringing me back this year, and thanks as well to all the folks who came to hang out with us (there are far too many of you to list!). I hope to be there again next year!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

Ah, sunny California. Three horror writers visit and things go to hell the moment we leave. Not our fault, I swear. We did have a great time, though, and my only regret was not stuffing my Digital Rebel into my bag to get better pictures.

The tour officially kicked off Saturday at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. Dark Delicacies is a cool little store catering to horror fans, selling books, movies, and novelties. The iconic Frankenstein’s monster statue waited out front, just as it had on my first visit about eight years ago.

Which one has the better complexion?

The signing didn’t start until 2pm, but we had folks coming in as early as a quarter after one. Several of our friends from the area showed up, as well as many long-time readers and fans. Brian Keene sold out of his books, and J.F. Gonzalez and I weren’t far behind.

Scribble scribble

I was surprised how many older books folks brought in, such as The Rising: Necrophobia, The Best of HorrorFind I and II, and even an ARC of New Dark Voices. One fan even had a limited edition copy of Deadliest of the Species (though he didn’t bring it), and asked what the status of the movie rights are. If only, right?

Keene, David Schow and Gonzalez

We signed until people stopped showing up, then hustled off to a meeting. While we did make some time to hang out and visit friends, next time we’re going to have to make it a longer trip to give us a little more time. Early the next morning we jumped out of bed and onto a plane bound for San Francisco.

We arrived at Borderlands Books just as they finished setting up, and again we found fans and friends waiting for us. Not to mention Ripley the furry hairless cat.

Ripley got the crowd -- and the table -- warmed up for us

We did a brief reading to a packed store. It’s been a long time since I’ve read in public, and while I eased back into it, I pulled a pinhead move and read a different chapter than I intended. Whoops. However, the werewolf transformation scene seemed to go over well, and folks eagerly snapped up copies.

One seat left. I think Brian's breath scared 'em off.

We didn’t completely sell out, but the cold and rainy weather didn’t exactly work in our favor. I also can’t complain because a great review showed up in the Examiner while we were out there.

Again, I wish the camera had taken better pictures. Though it’s a 5 megapixel cam and does a fair job with movies, it’s rather slow and unwieldy with stills. The slightest motion throws it off, so most of the pictures came out blurry. The rest of what I felt worth salvaging can be found here on Flickr.

The next leg of the tour starts tomorrow at VisionCon in Springfield, MO. I’m going to set Twitter to post to the blog again, and hopefully it will actually work this time. I hate leaving all that dead space here while I’m out and about, but technology being what it is, I sometimes don’t have a choice.

Hope to see some of you there!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

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I’m making the final preparations for this weekend’s signing trip, which will include turning the blog over to travel mode. Assuming I have time to take pics and fire off some Tweets from the road, they’ll be showing up here in daily digests. I suspect I’ll either be thrilled with the crowds at Dark Delicacies and Borderlands Books or Brian, Jesus and I will be hanging out in a bar and wondering why nobody showed up. Or hell, maybe we’ll be at a bar celebrating the huge turnout.

There will be a bar in there somewhere, anyway.

Wish us luck, and we’re looking forward to seeing you there. I’m off to get my stuff together and maybe squeeze in a last minute Photo Friday entry.

For now I’ll leave you with an unrelated picture from this morning:

He's coming for us all!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.